Teammate - Jack Bushnell

Working with Jack is always a blast.  He's one of those guys who can get stuff done and have fun doing it.  On this project he work primarily with the main character and level design on top of making sure the other art was getting done.  Jack is one of the most dedicated people I have had the pleasure of meeting at SCAD and I would gladly work with him again in the future.  Below are some images of the stuff he was working on.

The Alchemist

Background Assets

Run cycle animation sequence

Alchemy casting sequence(s)

Player Idle

Jump animation

Slide animation

Run cycle 2

Level tiles

That's a wrap!

What a strange, long weekend it has been.  Or has it been an extended day?  It sucks having horrid time perception after hours and hours of work.  Soon we will be presenting our game to the rest of the local competition.  I am beyond excited to see what everyone has come up with.  I want to express my thanks to the rest of the team for being as awesome as they were.  When something needed to happen we all pulled together and got it done faster that I would have thought possible.  I also want to shout out to the other students here at SCAD that competed in this year's game jam.

I wish you all the best of luck.  I've glanced at some of your projects on my beaks and can't wait for the opportunity to play them!  Be sure to post them up on the GDN Facebook page too and make them easy to find.

It has been fun, I'll be using the next few days to post the work of my teammate and the stuff I couldn't get up in the craziness that is Global Game Jam.

Now, to the presentations!

Running on the edge of a sword.

I have come to see crunch time as essentially running along a very narrow cliff way up in the clouds.  You run as fast you you possibly can to get stuff done or fall down.  Generally at the moment we're building levels and trying to finish the code.  Three of us are on stand-by should anything art wise need to be done... or anything else really.  Our coder could say "I need you to dance NAOW!" and it would happen.

This is the first time we've run into serious problems.  I have to say that fixing and creating problems at incredible speeds is both funny and infinitely stressful.

With that, I must go to get some stuff done.

The Final Stretch

Just wanted to let anyone reading know that I will more than likely not be able to post until the game has been complete.  We are down to four hours to complete the our game so we're crunching.  I will say as this stuff gets put into the engine it is looking awesome!  Can't wait to show you all!

13 Hours (or... 48127 Seconds) to go.

A lot was accomplished today.  I've been posting some of it but it's been happening fast enough that I haven't had time to really keep it up to date in real-time.  I'm amazed at what we have and can't wait to see it finished.  I will say though, today came with some sacrifices.  I had to give up eating dinner with someone close to me so I could discuss with my team where we needed to reallocate work efforts.

It's rough when you have to give something up to complete a project or job, you can only hope that the end product makes up from the sacrifices you made along the way.  That is my lesson for today.

That all said, I'll do my best to put up some pictures tomorrow morning.  I have yet to hear feedback from anyone, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail at mallen30@student.scad.edu, me and the team would love to hear what you have to say.

With that, I say goodnight.

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Updated Images

Nothing much to report.  Been working on some pixel special effects, which is funny to me the thought of special effects being pixely...  Anyway, updated background and some particle effects have been my life for the past few hours.  Enjoy!

These are enlarged so you can see more of how they actually are done.  They will look much better in-game.  I look forward to posting some screenshots.

Updated Backdrop

Explosion Sequence 1

Explosion Sequence 2 (part 1)

Explosion Sequence 2 (part 2)

Smoke Effects

Setting the Setting

Made quite a bit of progress on the background.  In fact, it's one of the more interesting pieces I have worked on, mainly because I'm still new to Pixel Art.  It intrigues me how much time is required to create a detailed, 2D pixel environment verses a "rendered" 2D environment.  I look at what I've accomplished and think about what I could have done were I digitally painting.  The contrast in end-result is eye-opening.  I used to consider pixel art as a short-cut to creating environments instead of rendering them out in a more traditional sense.  This project has taught me that it is equally difficult to work in pixels as it is in strokes.  Below is a JPEG of the current backdrop.

I'm still toying with it a bit, but that is the general feel of our setting.  Another challenge in this work has been we don't have a storyline or setting that is really set in stone.  Our goal with the art and environment has been more to create a world open to interpretation by the player.  For example, what destroyed the city?  War?  Alchemy?  Time?  We don't say, it's up to the player to create a setting in which they feel more immersed based on the information we have given them.

Working on this environment has broadened my thinking in how to approach environment design and concept.

I can't wait to play this game, the idea was exciting and working on the art has been fun!